New Glasgow's Maritime Building to be torn down

Maritime Building, the New Glasgow seven-storey landmark that opened in 1915, will be demolished at the end of the month. (AARON BESWICK / Truro Bureau)

NEW GLASGOW — The Maritime Building is coming down.

Demolition of the seven-storey landmark, which opened in 1915 in New Glasgow, will begin by the end of the month at a cost of just over $1 million.

“We don’t have that money to spend — we have to borrow the money to tear it down,” New Glasgow Mayor Barrie MacMillan said Wednesday.

“There are a lot of other projects we would rather borrow money to complete.”

Property developer Cohen MacInnis bought the building in 2009 and began renovating the interior but was shut down soon after by the fire marshal. The tenants were all kicked out and MacInnis declared bankruptcy.

Since then taxes have gone unpaid on the tallest building in New Glasgow, water has seeped into the walls through a leaky roof and pigeons have taken up residence.

Access to surrounding buildings on Provost Street will be maintained throughout the demolition, which is expected to be complete by early November. At that point the cost of the project will be added to MacInnis’s unpaid tax bill.

MacMillan said plans for the lot haven’t been made but that the town would have the option of selling it at a tax sale to recoup some of its costs.

“Glace Bay, Sydney, Stellarton all also have had trouble with vacant properties in their downtown core,” said MacMillan.

Dave Corkum, president of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, agreed.

Buildings erected during small-town Nova Scotia’s industrial heydayin the first half of the 20th century can end up burdening municipal governments trying to cope with declining tax bases.

“There’s always two aspects: You’re trying to hold on to that history but you also have to move ahead with modern times,” said Corkum.

By the time it opened in 1915, twenty-five hundred barrels of cement, 105 tonnes of steel and 100,000 bricks went into the Maritime Building’s construction, according to articles in the former New Glasgow newspaper The Eastern Chronicle. At the time it was one of only three seven-story buildings in Canada east of Montreal and a tribute to New Glasgow’s burgeoning industrial and commercial success.

While the decline of coal and steel industries have been hard on the New Glasgow area, MacMillan said the community still has plenty of life. Most storefronts are filled by restaurants, cafes and local retailers.

“The downtown has been repositioning itself,” said MacMillan.

The contract for the Maritime Building’s demolition has been awarded to Verhagan Demolition Ltd. of Pictou County.